by Mike Goodrich | Jan 12, 2022 | 2021, 2022, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, COVID-19, Entrepreneurial Assessment, Entrepreneurialism, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Start-Ups
As always with the new year, we’re taking some time to pause and reflect. First Avenue does so by compiling our annual list of funded start-ups in Birmingham, which helps us analyze the health of the city’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. I also like to take stock...
by laurelfain | Jul 16, 2021 | 2021, Business Lessons, Entrepreneurialism, Founders, Sales, Start-Ups
My middle son is in the midst of a passionate love affair with French fries, so I’ve done what any good mother would do – I’ve turned that love into a bargaining tool. He doesn’t like swim lessons? I’ll buy fries after. He hesitates to clean his room? I offer to make...
by Mike Goodrich | Jun 28, 2021 | 2021, Birmingham, Birmingham Funded Start-Ups List, Business Lessons, COVID-19, Entrepreneurialism, Founders, Services, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Start-Ups
“You need to make hay when it rains.” I first heard this axiom — in that instance, in connection to a business in high-end consumer goods — in my early days as a lawyer. Simply put, the goal is to make your money during the good times, knowing that the...
by Mike Goodrich | Apr 30, 2021 | 2021, Business Lessons, Entrepreneurialism, Football, Mission-Driven Businesses, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Social Capital and Social Entrepreneurialism
Last week, a group of 12 European soccer teams tried to form an exclusive league unto themselves only to see it crumble. The plan became the business mistake du jour and had even the most casual soccer fan engaged and enraged. Since I follow it only loosely, I didn’t...
by Mike Goodrich | Jan 7, 2021 | 2021, Business Lessons, COVID-19, Entrepreneurialism, Start-Ups
No paradox in my life has been more stark than the current COVID-19 paradox: with the great relief of vaccines on the horizon, we’re seeing massive increases in the amount of casualties. The former inspires hope and a quick end; the latter, destruction and...
